It's a sad day for fans of the TV musical, the TV murder mystery and the TV casino drama. All three of them.
Viva Laughlin, CBS' first foray into the multihyphenate genre, has been yanked after just two airings, joining CW's Online Nation and Fox's Nashville in the fall season's discard pile.
A repeat of CSI will be deployed in Viva Laughlin's barely used 8 p.m., Sunday time slot next weekend, the network said Monday. Then, starting Nov. 4, the Emmy-winning, American Idol-denying Amazing Race will begin its 12th season there.
The Hollywood trades, which first reported the story, declared Viva Laughlin a terminal case—as in canceled. In network tradition, CBS was loath to use the "C" word itself, preferring to describe the freshman show, to E! News, as having been "pulled," no doubt gently and with great care, from the schedule.
There was no word on when or if the show would ever be "pulled" back onto the schedule.
In Viva Laughlin's namesake Nevada hometown, officials digested news of the show's murky future and looked on the bright side.
"The national exposure Laughlin received from the show was unprecedented," Meg McDaniel of the Laughlin Visitors Bureau said Monday. "We thoroughly enjoyed working with the cast and crew."
Premiering last Thursday, Viva Laughlin boasted movie stars (Hugh Jackman and Melanie Griffith, both of whom were to appear on a recurring basis—Jackman was also an executive producer)—and an A-list soundtrack (Elvis, the Rolling Stones, etc.).
But despite the big names, the big hook (watch Jackman sing the Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil!") and a big CSI lead-in, only 8.4 million, on average, caught the pilot. Sunday's episode—the first and possibly last outing in its regular time slot—fared even worse, averaging an estimated 6.8 million.
Viva Laughlin is based on what is invariably described as the hit British series Viva Blackpool, indicating the singing-dancing-slot machine combination is capable of hitting the jackpot.
But U.S. audiences and networks have been less kind to shows that sing, at least on a regular basis. While Scrubs, for instance, rated an Emmy nomination for a one-shot musical episode, Cop Rock, which harmonized early and often, rated a quick hook.
As things turned out, Cop Rock, once one of TV's most notorious misfires, was a relative long-running series compared with Viva Laughlin. The former ABC show lasted 11 episodes back in 1990.
Interestingly, in a story in Friday's New York Times about the overall financial health of CBS Corp., President and CEO Leslie Moonves cautioned against drawing fast conclusions.
"I've been in television for 27 years," Moonves said in the paper. "I know you can't read the tea leaves in a couple of weeks."
But apparently you can read the writing on the wall after a couple of episodes.